I Couldn't Help Myself

I realized its been a while since I've written anything about how the stress reaction in my hip is healing... I guess I'd say it's healing well? I think? It's really felt nearly perfect for the last 3-4 weeks. I get these weird- seemingly random- moments where I feel a subtle deep ache on that left side. I'm not really sure what that's about but those come maybe 1-2x/week and last maybe 10-20minutes and then seem to just fade away. It's possible I'm just being hyper-aware and if I paid less attention those deep ache episodes might pass by unnoticed...

This week I started doing some moderate strength training. Not sure I'm officially cleared to do that yet? I hope I don't look back on this as a giant mistake, but I'll document it here just in case... On Monday I did 2x10 squats with a 45lb bar (last week I did body weight squats a couple times no issue and prior to that had been doing a 'floor routine' basic strength exercises I put together that were all non-weight bearing). No issue with those squats on Monday (not even a little sore) so today I did 2x12 with 65lbs and 2x12 deadlifts again with 65lbs and it didn't feel hard or heavy and my form felt solid. I genuinely like lifting weights but will try to not over do it at least until December. #SteelChallenge anyone? :)

I've been walking the dog like 20-30min most days for the last few weeks. Tonight I included 6x30 steps super easy/slow jogging. Each of those short jogs were on slight uphills. Zero pain (or even sensation, really- 100% fine). I'm officially cleared to start running Nov 1 so I'm about 10 days early right now, but does 6x30 steps even count? My gut just said I could do that tonight and I wasn't going to hurt myself so hopefully I'm not wrong about that. But just in case, I pinky swear NO JOGGING tomorrow. I think the name of the game with bone issues is re-introducing stress in micro-doses and then allowing adequate time to adapt. 6x30 steps felt like a mini micro-dose of stress.

Besides that, I've been riding and swimming 3-4x/week. Monday I swam alone b/c no training partners showed up to the pool and the water was hot and I just had very little motivation. Muddled my way through 3400 but it was totally uninspired. Today, Mark showed up and the water was maybe a degree cooler and that helped a ton! I'm super spoiled wanting/needing someone to push me in the pool. My 1000 w/u today was nearly a full minute faster than Monday. Main set was short at only 1200m but was quality: 2x400's strong @6:30 straight into 4x100's fast @1:40 and I swam hard enough to make myself nauseous. After that Mark got out but I was on a roll so I stayed in and pulled a 2k straight descending the 500's 7:51 down to 7:24 which was faster than it felt. Goes to show how much performance is in our heads. Physically I was no different today vs Monday but today my head was in the game and it was night and day different.

I haven't done anything specific or structured on the bike. Just been riding maybe 2 hours at a time and it's mostly been low cadence strength work. Some hill climbing but again not structured repeats or anything just out cruising around looking for hills to ride up. Efforts are seated and using heavy gearing low cadence controlled HR and its quite enjoyable. I feel like I'm finally regaining some strength in my legs.